


Circlecest

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 R2, R3, Final - CIRCLECEST [24]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Goldenlake, Other, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-06
Updated: 2011-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-20 05:09:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We did it then, didn’t we? We’re all…connected.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com
> 
> The final portion of my Circlecest megaship megaseries. This one kind of turned into an orgy. Oops. But definitely a new experience for me.

“We did it then, didn’t we? We’re all…connected.” Sandry smoothed the sheet she was wearing and sat at the kitchen table of Cheeseman House, her Circle family around her in varied states of dress or undress. When Briar walked close by, Sandry grabbed his arm and pulled him down into her lap; she rested her head against his shoulder.

            Daja winked at Briar as she knit her fingers with Tris. “We’ve all expressed our gratitude.”

            “Had a few firsts…” Tris murmured, smiling almost softly; she squeezed Daja’s hand.

            “And a few new experiences!” Briar added. Daja sent along the image of Briar in a dress, panting and gasping in the kitchen.

Sandry giggled and bit his shoulder. “I think you may look better in that dress than I do.”

            “I ain’t arguing that, sistah.”

            Sandry tickled him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "...How long would we have gone on, with all that energy underneath, if Tris hadn’t started the change?”

Tris and Daja took seats at the kitchen table, which was still set for a dinner meal although the sun was inching above the horizon once more. Sandry wrapped her arms around Briar, not ready for him to leave her lap yet; he waggled his bottom until she laughed and kissed his back.

            “It was Tris, wasn’t it?” he murmured at last, serious but still light with her genuine appreciation. “We all have Tris to thank. How long would we have gone on, with all that energy underneath, if Tris hadn’t started the change?”

            Sandry rested against his back and gazed at Tris, beautiful Tris who had stepped forward despite the fear of it being her _first_. “You started a new pattern, Tris. I wonder what we are now.”

            “We’ve become a diamond-circle,” Daja answered with a wide smile. She cupped Tris’ chin in her living-metal hand. “And it was our Tris who took the first step.”

            Tris grew redder with every statement from her friends. At last she threw up her hands and exclaimed, “Who would have thought it would be me? I hadn’t done anything of the sort before, and suddenly—suddenly…!” she trailed off. As her hands fell, she grasped Daja’s in her own.

            “Suddenly we’re all connected anew,” Sandry confirmed. She touched Tris’ leg with one bare foot. “Thank you, Tris.”

            “Thank _you_ ,” Tris cut off, before the others could pipe in. She closed her eyes for less than a second and added, in her mind, _I couldn’t have had better firsts_.

            She nearly cried to feel the love each of them sent to every other, a diamond within a circle.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Three’s company, four’s a home.”

It was noon when the residents—temporary and permanent—of the Cheeseman House began to rouse once more, after their late sleep. It was an afternoon of slow stretching and soft whispering.

            “Briaaaar!” Sandry yowled, running her hands through his hair to messy it up. “I thought you were Little Bear!”

            Daja was too busy laughing to comment. She laughed harder as a very confused Tris entered the room, hair a mess and face half pillow-creased. She mumbled, “What happened? Earth quake…?”

            “Briar-quake,” Sandry corrected. After mention of Little Bear, Briar was wagging his bottom and endeavouring to lick Sandry’s face; she had her palm flat against his cheek to keep him away. “Someone call the dog off.”

            “Briar, come!” Tris called. He shot a look over his shoulder, one eyebrow high, and she laughed. She raised her hands helplessly. “Nothing I can do.”

            Sandry, resigned, made room for the Briar-mutt between herself and Daja; she beckoned for Tris to join them. “Three’s company, four’s a home.”

            Tris smiled and clambered into the bed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We’re in bed?” Sandry murmured, smile growing sly. “Seems a dangerous place for us all to be.”

“Seems such a short time since I’ve seen you all,” Daja remarked as she recalled their dawn meeting over her and Sandry’s re-heated dinner meal. She wondered how many hours they had slept to recover from their separate-but-similar evening activities. Briar jumping into their bed had been a surprise; Tris following soon after had been less so.

            Briar rolled over and pecked Daja on the cheek. “You can’t get tired of our pretty faces.”

            “In the morning? I can be tired of _anything_ ,” Tris countered. But her features were nothing but relaxed as Sandry rubbed a hand over her hip.

            Daja lifted herself to rest her chin on Briar’s chest. “What happened to our no-dogs-in-bed rule?”

            “We’re in bed?” Sandry murmured, smile growing sly. “Seems a dangerous place for us all to be.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That boy and his stomach,” Tris grumbled, but she was grinning.

Briar’s stomach growled. It was loud enough for the other three in Daja’s bed to hear it as well.

            “Briar!” Tris screeched, modulated with her laughter, and danced her fingers over his abdomen. “Way to break the mood.”

            His shoulder shrugged, which nearly dislodged Daja. She grinned and pressed a finger to his forehead. “Do we have any breakfast food, since we missed that meal?”

            Sandrey rested her cheek on Tris’. “I’m hungry too. We only ate leftovers last night.”

            “I’m going to fix this,” Briar announced. He pulled free from Daja’s chin and Tris’ fingers; he was up out of bed a second later, landing on the floor like a cat. He turned and smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

            The three girls shrugged as he hurried away.

            “That boy and his stomach,” Tris grumbled, but she was grinning.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come on, beast boy, before those two catch a chill.”

Briar entered Daja’s bedroom carrying a tray piled with food. He smiled over it to Sandry, Tris and Daja, all reclined on the bed and chatting. The picture was nice: Sandry flush against Tris, pale legs intertwined with Daja’s heated dark skin. The thought made him smile.

            “I say we build a really big bed for winter and use Daja as our personal heater.”

            “I agree,” Sandry replied immediately. Tris laughed, which tended to mean the same. Daja rolled her eyes and grinned, moving over to make room for Briar and his tray.

            “Come on, beast boy, before those two catch a chill.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There are crumbs in my bed.”

“There are crumbs in my bed.” Daja stated. She pointed at the crumbs scattering her sheets from the breakfast-in-bed arrangement Briar had brought for the three of them. Sandry, Tris and Briar stared at the offending food morsels.

            Sandry jerked her chin; the sheets directed the crumbs away, dumping them onto the floor.

            Daja raised an eyebrow. “I have crumbs on my _floor_.”

            Tris made no show of noticing when a breeze entered through Daja’s open window and swept the crumbs out into the corridor. Sandry bit down a giggle and replaced it with a bite of toast—carefully over her plate.

            Daja sighed, on the edge of laughter herself. “I have crumbs in my _hall_.”

            Briar gazed once over his shoulder, then turned back. The wood floor of the hall ate the crumbs, collecting them into the hard fibres themselves. The crumbs disappeared.

            “Fine! You all win. Breakfast in bed is an acceptable morning activity.”

            “That’s good,” Tris declared, grinning, “but it’s past noon now.”

            Daja fell back against her pillows and laughed at last. Briar fed her a piece of muffin.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m full.”

“I’m full.” Sandry replaced her plate on the tray that Briar had brought to them all in Daja’s bed. Tris stacked her plate on Sandry’s, her own admission to the same.

            Briar topped the pile with his own plate. “I’m out of food.”

            Daja laughed as she added her empty plate. For Briar, that was the closest statement one ever truly heard to ‘I’m full.’

            He plucked up the tray and placed it on the floor at the foot of the bed. He turned just in time to see Sandry smack his bottom. She giggled at being caught red-handed.

            “Ain’t you heard ‘don’t bite the hand that feeds you?’”

            Sandry dragged Briar back into the bed, between Tris and Daja. “I didn’t bite the hand; I smacked the bottom.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Briar and Daja sensed the change in the room immediately and turned.

“Sandry, that tickles.” Tris reached back for Sandry’s hand as they lay in Daja’s bed. Sandry moved the hand to Tris’ hip and stroked in circles.

            “Is this better?” she whispered and gripped Tris’ earlobe loosely in her teeth. She licked the outer ridge and cooed. “Surely it is…”

            Tris moaned; her hips shifted, brushing against Briar. Sandry’s hand journeyed down as the corners of her lips journeyed up. Briar and Daja sensed the change in the room immediately and turned.

            “I think it’s time to properly thank Tris for joining us all together,” Briar decided. His expression was dangerous as he bent to kiss Tris.

            Daja shifted to the end of the bed and slid up between Tris and Briar’s hips. She covered Tris’ soft belly with kisses, smiling at the familiar gasps she heard based on all their actions.

            Tris was overwhelmed by the sensations: Sandry’s silken softness; Briar’s gritty growth; Daja’s molten metal malleability. One was enough to throw her over, but all three?

            Her scream rivalled and then overcame Sandry’s previous utterances.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m still alive?” she gasped, blinking sweat away.

Tris breathed deeply and stared at the ceiling as her eyes regained focus. She waited for the world to stop spinning. Sandry and Briar’s hands in hers helped, along with Daja gripping her leg and stroking with skin and metal. Her breathing calmed. Daja’s ceiling and the feeling of Daja’s bed below her came back in a flood of sensation.

            “I’m still alive?” she gasped, blinking sweat away. “That…” She shook her head, unable to say more. “Thank you.”

            “You can’t go thanking us for _your_ thank you,” Sandry declared. She kissed Tris’ temple. “That would start one endless cycle.”

            Tris turned and kissed her hard on the mouth. She held Sandry’s gaze as they parted. “That sounds perfect.”

            As quick as that, the energy in the room turned toward Sandry; it was almost something they could taste, with the presence each had in the others’ minds.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sheets shifted almost of their own jurisdiction.

The sheets shifted almost of their own jurisdiction. It was clear soon after, as they pulled up at the sides and pushed Sandry to the centre of Daja’s bed, that Sandry’s desires were guiding them, however inadvertently.

            Daja took a back seat as she had been with Sandry the evening before.

            Sandry felt that, but she also felt the heat of Daja’s presence and the softness of her mouth. And with Tris and Briar, too…

            So many lips. Whose was on her own, whose pressed to her breast? She knew her mind would tell her if she grasped but she escaped the urge, for the mystery was worth more and with the knowledge that she loved them all equally there was no need to know. She pressed against them, against Tris’ luscious softness and Briar’s sculptured hardness and Daja’s hungry _heat_ …

            She thought she saw the magic through Tris’ eyes—perhaps she was in Tris mind, but her own body—and the heat of pumping blood through Daja’s sense of warmth. She gyrated over the sheets and marvelled at their senses, too: four mages in love and longing, calling to the green and weathered and fire-metal and thread of the world.

            Sandry matched Tris’ scream; Tris, still sharing Sandry’s mind, joined her.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did Tris just…?”

Tris and Sandry heard talking above the darkness and sparks left in their sights, the blood just ceasing to pound in their ears and the breath just catching up with their minds. Tris untangled her mind from Sandry’s, unsure of how that had happened.

            “Did Tris just…?” Briar.

            “She did.” Daja. “This could make it interesting.”

            “Did _you_?”

            “I felt it more than I’ve felt it with others.” Daja’s slow chuckle. “You, loverboy?”

            “Definitely tried my stamina.”

            “Rules.” Daja. Reminding tone. A smile voice?

            Briar’s laughter. “I know. I’ll be fine.”

            Tris pushed herself onto her elbows. Her finish had been less intense than Sandry’s, as it had been an indirect connection through Sandry’s magical mind. Tris blinked and smiled, a little sheepish. “That was surprising.” She turned to Briar and took in his condition, recalling the words she had just overheard. “I can help you with that.”

            “Me too,” Sandry offered with a tired but resolute smile as she propped herself up on Tris. “I think it’s Briar’s turn.”

            Briar gulped but his grin gave it away as a show. Tris had the feeling a group affair was not new to him—though this sort, she imagined, was quite new. He simply said, “Uh-oh.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three girls jumped Briar simultaneously.

Three girls jumped Briar simultaneously. He was not entirely unused to the concept at its most basic, but with _the girls_ it felt different. It was more intense than anything else he’d felt.

            He felt Daja’s kisses and her magic, hot and sizzling yet also deep and steady behind his eyes.

            He felt Tris’ hands working decidedly different magic. Crafter’s magic could be that of hands, hands and lips, hands and lips and tongue…

            He arched and felt Sandry. He felt Sandry massaging his magic—green vines and tender new shoots—with silk cloth and velvet. No women or men had been inside him in _that_ capacity, not in such a way.

            He was outmatched and gone gone gone, lost in his personal paradise. This time there were three familiar presences, too. Briar smiled. He’d never been joined before, not like this, but it was lovely.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But I agree with Briar: your turn.”

Briar felt the tingling in his body and mind that let him know he was coming to. He roused with a smile. He tended to bounce back quickly; practice had given him that much. Sandry rested on his chest; Daja had her lips near his ear; Tris rested against his hip. His girls.

            They rested. Daja bumped her head against his not long after; he grinned at her.

            “Tag,” he murmured, pressing his nose to hers and fluttering his lashes against her own, “you’re it.”

            “It may kill me,” Daja commented, but it didn’t seem to be a refusal.

            “I think we’ll all be working at desks this week,” Tris stated against Briar’s hip bone. She pulled herself up to Daja and wrapped their legs together.

            “I agree.” Sandry rolled over the lot of them—with a few minimal complaints—until she spooned Daja from behind and nuzzled the woman’s braids. “But I agree with Briar: your turn.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That was new.

Daja could barely draw in her breath. She knew, on one level, that she was in her bed with the others. On a different plane, they were all in her head: Sandry weaving the wire of her magic; Briar growing metallic pleasure-plants from the mesh there; Tris undulating with the magic deep within her and coaxing it into waves and patterns.

            That, with the fingers and tongues and lips and teeth and flushed skins… Daja was a lost cause. It was nothing she had experienced before. Or partially she had, one at a time, but together as one magical and physical body or the closest to it…

            Daja shook her head and bit her pillow as the other three clung to her and moved together, each motion producing another without thought and, in so doing, entirely in tandem.

            The four ascended together, shadows of Daja’s holler. She thought she would never come down; but Tris caught her up, Sandry spun her in and Briar gave her roots. She held them tight—or as tight as her shaky muscles allowed—and murmured ‘thank you’ in repetition as tears leaked from her eyes.

            That was new. But she knew, somehow—intuitively perhaps—that the three other sets of eyes were not entirely dry, either.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So you’re not immune,” Daja grunted, grinning.

Briar, Tris and Sandry were waiting for Daja when she re-joined the physical world. She blinked and managed to lift her arms enough to rub her eyes, but only barely.

            “Briar,” she croaked, “how in the name of Hakkoi’s right arm are you sitting right now? My spine is a noodle.”

            “Practice, my friend, practice.”

            “To predict I would ever hear Briar Moss say such a thing…” Tris teased, head in his lap. Daja felt Sandry’s giggle through the arm Sandry clutched.

            “It’s about finding the things that matter,” Briar decided, smiling fondly. “Like teachers, gardening and romps.”

            “Romps? We’re a romp?” Sandry repeated; the giggles were not entirely removed from her voice.

            “Well, no,” he admitted. “Normally I _romp_ ; today I feel _romped_.”

            “So you’re not immune,” Daja grunted, grinning.

            “Not at all.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sad, but at least we’ll have each other.”

“Are we ever going to find partners who could understand this?” Sandry wondered, indicating their naked forms strewn about Daja’s bed. It would have been clear to any intruder what they had all been up to together; it would have been clear to the intruder for a second—before he, she or thon became dead.

            Silence reigned for a moment.

            “I think it’s possible,” Daja said. “If partners can understand being essentially married to Gods…”

            Tris nodded against Briar’s lap. “If people can be dedicated in life and love to Gods and still find partners, surely we can.”

            “I think,” Sandry piped in, “that our love for each other doesn’t detract from love we have to give to others. I think love is additive, not subtractive. And it may be difficult to gain approval of four people where one would normally suffice, but…surely it’s worth it, if it means a person enters into _this_.” She swept her arms over them again and smiled when her hand landed on Daja’s hip; she kept it there.

            Briar yawned but smiled. “Imagine this with eight people. Or if I were like Rosethorn, more! As great as this has been, I’m sure it won’t happen often—we’ll be drained tomorrow and longer. But I think it’s possible to find people who understand. I predict Sandry and Tris might have the hardest time of it.”

            “Great,” Tris grumbled.

            Sandry leaned over Daja to kiss Tris. “Sad, but at least we’ll have each other.”

            Tris smiled. “There’s that.”

            Daja nodded. _There’s always that._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! C: I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
